PORTLAND, Ore. _ Damian Lillard stepped back and released the ball in a motion which he's broken so many hearts.
The Los Angeles Lakers had fought back from a near-20 point deficit, they swarmed the Trail Blazers shooters, they got into passing lanes. They started hitting some shots late. With 15.5 seconds left, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope gave the Lakers a chance with a three-pointer off a pass from Lonzo Ball.
But Lillard countered with his own three-pointer. It fell through the net with just 0.7 seconds left and secured a Trail Blazers win, 113-110. The Lakers have lost 13 games in a row to the Trail Blazers, and have not won in Portland since 2014. This is their only trip to the Moda Center this year, so that streak will last at least until the 2018-19 season.
"It's hard to play in here," Ball said. "They came out and jumped on us. We fought our way back and at the end they took it from us."
Lillard scored 32 points while Jusuf Nurkic added 28 for Portland. The Lakers were led by Brook Lopez, who scored 27 points, and Kyle Kuzma scored a career high 22 points.
Ball took only two shots and missed them both. He also had two blocked shots, one turnover, one steal, four assists and three rebounds.
As they tend to do, the Lakers fell behind big in the first quarter _ by as many as 18 points. Portland made 15 of 21 shots and six of seven three-pointers. They weren't all uncontested looks, but cut into what had been a very strong Lakers defense. The Lakers, meanwhile, attempted five three-pointers and missed all of them.
After one quarter, Portland led 41-23.
But the Lakers trusted their defense. They swarmed the Trail Blazers, especially in the paint, frustrating Portland in ways that didn't always show up on the stat sheet. Their statistics, though, showed a positive trend. The Lakers cut Portland's lead to four at halftime, outscoring them 37 to 25.
By the end of the third quarter, the Lakers trailed 87-85 and had seven steals, six blocked shots and only five turnovers.
"We just tried to play with a lot of energy," Kuzma said. "Tried to make their role players beat us."
Neither team gave in easily in the fourth quarter and neither team gave anything up easily, either.
Kuzma tied the game to start the fourth quarter, then after a back-and-forth tug of war, he gave the Lakers the lead with a three-pointer with 10:13 left in the game. It was only the Lakers' second three-pointer of the game. At that point they had gone 2-of-12 from deep.
Kuzma's last bucket came with 1:08 left in the game, when he gave the Lakers a 107-106 lead. Two possessions later, the Lakers trailed by three and Caldwell-Pope came off a screen to sink a game-tying shot.
"KCP being one of our better shooters, if he gets a clean look at a three we want him taking it," Lakers Coach Luke Walton said.
Portland took the lead back with Lillard's heroics and then it was Kuzma's turn again. Walton had left him in the game, and Ball too, hoping to teach the young players through that experience.
"Portland went to some junk defense, which you should," Walton said. "There's point seven, only threes, they were all around the three point line so it took us out of the play we were actually running. But I'm glad that they figured out a way to manipulate what was going on to get someone a good look it was Lonzo taking it out and Kuzma, two rookies, they had the confidence and, again, I'll take Kuz taking that shot at the end of the game, too."
Kuzma released the shot from the top of the arc.
"I thought it was going in," Kuzma said. "Good experience. (I'm) sure I'll have a lot of those in my future."
